


Reconciliation

by sunshinestealer



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 05:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6739294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinestealer/pseuds/sunshinestealer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years ago, Beatrice flew off without once looking back at the fate that was to befall Wirt.</p><p>Years later, her regrets lead her towards the legend of the Beast and his Pilgrim. The latter of whom only she seems to be able to remember.</p><p>(Slight Beast!Wirt and Beatrice, if you squint.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reconciliation

Years had passed since that fateful night. 

Beatrice had absconded with the scissors, fighting with a terrible guilt roiling inside her gizzard as she fled towards Adelaide. Selfish to the very end, wasn’t she?

She darted through the knife-like trees in one of the many winter sectors of the Unknown, occasionally looking backwards as the blizzard grew ever fiercer. It was hopeless – she’d never be able to navigate her way back to Wirt now, even if there was any chance he’d listen to her. The Beast had probably taken his soul for the trees, or gotten the stupid boy into doing some awful duty for him for the rest of eternity.

Wirt had been solemn, glaring at the Death of Hope straight in the face as he went to take the lantern he believed would be replaced with Greg’s spirit. The fact that the Woodsman laid defeated on the ground nearby didn’t appear to worry him one bit. Nor did the prospect of the soul of the Woodsman’s daughter being blown out forever in order to find a place for Greg.

Gosh, Wirt really was a selfish idiot at times. He’d tossed the scissors towards the ground, the bluebird barely able to catch them by the handles with her feet in the air. Right now, Beatrice surmised, all that mattered to him was the small Edelwood stump that was threatening to claim Greg, warping and crushing him into oil, a screaming image in the wood being the only evidence of the terror he had been through before death.

Silently, he had made the bargain with the dark creature of the woods. Beatrice’s screams seemed to die in her throat. She’d needled the boy about his stupid, obedient yet self-serving personality, and now he was deciding to do something for the benefit of another, he had chosen to do the worst thing possible. Had he not gotten the hint through every single song and story from the inhabitants of the Unknown that the Beast was an uncaring, unfeeling demon who preyed on the souls of the weak and hopeless? Maybe Wirt really was dumb as a bag of rocks. All that book-learning and poetry reciting was just there to hide a slow wit.

If she had tear ducts, she would be crying right now. Her mind raced as she flew through the trees, and felt the temperature mercifully get a few degrees warmer. The leaves turned from a muddy brown shade to golden, and she had to take a quick turn to the pasture to find the little thatched cottage that Adelaide called home.

Exhausted, both emotionally and physically, she had darted in through the window and hopped onto the old woman’s lap with the scissors in hand. 

“I know this isn’t what we bargained,” she said in between breaths, “but I _did_ technically bring two child servants to you.”

Adelaide just continued quilting. As the bluebird grew more and more agitated, she finally relented. “You wish to learn how to use these.” 

“Well, duh, it’d be easier to use them if I had hands in the first place. Then I could turn the rest of my family back. After apologising.”

“I can sense that one of the child servants is now under the thumb of a new master,” she said, casually snipping at a thread with a pair of scissors, noticeably less sharp than the ones curled in Beatrice’s claw. “It is the one I also serve, you know.” 

“Yes, I get it,” Beatrice snapped, not wishing for the woman to draw her into a conversation that would imply that she was just as bad, if not worse than the Beast for allowing the boys to get so diverted off course, where the forest trapped the majority of its victims. Or anything else Beatrice could have been accused of since she first met with Wirt and Greg. 

She’d found them originally when they were close to Pottsfield. Being stuck with Enoch and his creepy villagers forever seemed like a merciful fate compared to what would happen to Wirt now… Greg gone forever, and Wirt tasked with keeping the lantern lit.

Adelaide snipped the final stitch into place, a patch that was entirely black except for the two dark scarlet roses that had been embroidered into the centre.

“Let us begin, then.”

* * *

 

Now human again, Beatrice was still struggling with the choice she had made. Sure, it had sucked being a lesser creature, and it sucked that the rest of her family had been drawn into that fate as well. At least they had been granted the ability to talk.

Her parents were overbearing as ever, and their sense of humour remained awful and cringe-worthy, yet terribly endearing. There’s a whole flock of younger siblings to take care of now, and it’s Beatrice’s job to help out her mother the best she can. The family dog - a mixture of greyhound and fox terrier - is still dumb as ever and too eager to follow commands in the hope of an extra bit of meat in its bowl. Beatrice keeps him nearby most of the time. If anything, it’s a reminder of Wirt.

She sighed as she looked out of the window at the slowly-falling rain that will likely turn into snow by the evening. All of her siblings are at the schoolhouse for the afternoon, and there was another hour on the clock until they’d need picking up. It’s a mile straight down the path, but Beatrice still takes it upon herself to lead the children back home. One little diversion into the surrounding woods and they’ll fall prey to the Beast. Whenever that sort of childish curiosity occurs, Beatrice was quick to scold them in what could be seen as perhaps an unnecessarily harsh tone of voice. Tears have been shed, her siblings crying to Beatrice that they hate her and wish she’d run away from home again. But she’s only being cruel to be kind.

That’s the way of this world, isn’t it?

Beatrice was aware of the bizarre weather patterns in the Unknown, sometimes shifting through all four seasons in one day or over the course of one week. Thankfully, the area her family had chosen to settle down in only suffered through the odd spot of inclement weather. Mostly it was bright and temperate. Except, of course, for the winter months.

Winter was unpleasant for Beatrice, bringing up an unpleasant itch of anxiety, and a slight sickness that seems to have permanently settled in her heart, squeezing around it with the painful memory of the night she left Wirt to the mercy of the Beast.

God, he must despise her. Or has the Beast done what Adelaide would – filled his head with cotton stuffing, so that the boy now follows his every command, no matter how horrid? If that’s the case, then she doubted that he even remembers her. He’s probably seen so many souls since.

* * *

 

It was only a few nights into the family being reunited as humans again that Beatrice’s mother began to speak of the Beast’s Pilgrim. In conversation about the creature over the dinner table, the younger children are scared into polishing off their vegetables by their mother’s insistence that the Beast and his assistant are _especially_ good hunters of those who don’t eat their greens.

“Wait, his assistant? I thought the Beast works alone.” Beatrice insisted.

“Don’t be silly, dear,” her mother said, going to snuff out a candle. “Where there is the Beast, there is always a despairing soul who follows close behind. 

No matter what Beatrice insisted about the Beast’s solitary nature, her mother remained adamant.

“Okay,” Beatrice concedes, “there _was_ the Woodsman…”

To which her mother rolled her eyes, exasperated. “No, dear. The word you’re looking for is Pilgrim.”

Beatrice asked her father, who parroted the exact same assertion as his wife. The schoolmistress said the same as well.

It had been so long ago now. Her youngest siblings had now grown old enough to help out around the mill, or with Father’s market stall. If they so chose, of course. Little Isaiah was too clever for either of those two fates.

She had been pondering for so long that she had to skitter to the coat rack when she realised that she was going to be late to pick up the children from school. Drawing her cloak tightly around her, Beatrice stepped out into the slight chill and hurriedly made her way down the path that Father dug out especially so nobody in the family would ever lose their way.

The children were waiting outside the schoolhouse, patient as ever. On the way home from school, Beatrice kept an extra eye on her siblings. Every now and again, on these journeys to and from the school, she felt that same anxiety from years ago wrack her heart and mind.

One time, she had caught sight of a shadowy figure from out of the corner of her eye. Her mind had primally jumped to the conclusion that the Beast was upon them, and hurried her siblings further down the path towards the safety of home. But… no. The figure hadn’t been gently floating above the ground, as the Beast was said to. The figure had stood stock still, wearing a heavy fur mantle, and… was that Wirt’s dorky little cone hat, and were those _antlers_?

Beatrice’s sleep had been disturbed that night, as she dreamed of the boy she hadn’t been able to save, staring at her with those pale ringed eyes. Like some terrible spectre at the foot of her bed.

She had clutched at the covers and hidden her head under her pillow, but the guilt never dissipated. But she _had_ to stay in the house. She’d be easy prey for the Beast if she succumbed to the temptation to go outside and dispel her anxieties with a short walk. 

* * *

 

The life of a Lantern-bearer sounds wonderfully beautiful and tragic on paper. A lost soul carrying out a voluntary duty for the King of the Forest, taking on a burden so that the locals will not have to carry out sacrifices or venerate the Beast as they did in old times. Just respect the woods, and the hunter that dwells within — those who get lost within its borders are fair game, and never come back quite the way they were before. If they come back at all, that is.

Wirt had remained by the Beast’s side for such a long time that the years had almost blended into each other. He’d passed through the stages of misery, anger, apathy and eventual acceptance, now answering to the title ‘Pilgrim’, and being at the creature’s beck and call once evening fell.

He had been physically warped by the dark magic in these woods too, over the years. The Beast knew of the importance of keeping a Lantern Bearer by its side, and while the Woodsman could simply be kowtowed into doing his duties, Wirt was far too smart. The Beast possessed no telepathic abilities, but somewhere along the line, the creature could tell that Wirt no longer believed his younger brother’s spirit was in the lantern. Rather than contest the Beast, Wirt had sadly accepted his fate.

But, there was always the chance that the boy could run off to any of the other inhabitants of the Unknown, some of whom may have possessed the knowledge to allow his soul to cross back over the river.

And that could not be allowed.

So, the physical alterations came into play. The Beast would claim that they were a result of ‘bonding’ with the Dark Lantern, much to Wirt’s despair. The antlers, the glowing pink, blue and yellow eyes, the heavy furred mantle, the claws that had grown in…

All to prevent him looking for further help. It may have been a drastic measure, but it had worked. Wirt diligently continued to carry out his duties, making no complaint at no longer having any social prospects whatsoever. He seemed to have an uncanny knack for finding the lost souls of the Unknown, the patches of forest with the best Edelwood. The trees there secreted oil that refined into a beautiful black lustre and kept the lantern burning for longer than the Woodsman had ever been able to accomplish.

Sometimes, Wirt came across figures from his past. Not the past from before he had crossed the river, of course. Life was too cruel for that.

He’d passed by the Tavern Keeper’s way, walked down the bridge where the Highwayman was said to haunt. He even ran off into the woods when he realised he was close to Endicott’s tea fields, and the man himself, on a jaunty walk with his beloved Marguerite at his side.

“I could have _sworn_ I just saw my nephew, dear.”

"Which one?"

"The eldest."

"The little one, with the teapot on his head?" Marguerite asks in her lilting French accent.

"No, I'm certain. The taller, older boy..." Endicott trails off, before clearing his throat. "I was certain of it, but..."

“Oh, you must have been imagining things again…” 

Wirt had hidden behind a rather large topiary, unwilling to let dear Uncle Endicott see him like this. Of course, not that the old fool would probably notice. He’d been remarkably accepting of the two young boys who showed up at his estate with a half-conceived tall tale of being related to him, just to gain some shelter and perhaps the knowledge on how to get home. As well as their companions, the talking, thieving horse and the bluebird with a tongue that could strip paint. 

He’d quickly spirited himself back towards the woods proper, taking deep breaths to dispel the anxiety and focusing on his work instead. 

It didn’t help that Lorna and her Auntie inhabited this neck of the woods, and would often come here foraging. Wirt can’t let her see him as the Beast’s Pilgrim. Even if they were once the same, an evil supernatural spirit hovering over their shoulders…

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

The Beast keeps its distance from Wirt. If anything, one could say that the creature has grown _bored_ of the Pilgrim, diligently carrying out his duty. Maybe it was time for a new Lantern-Bearer after all these years. 

Or maybe just time to engineer some scenario that _would_ be interesting. Despite his stoic, hard-working façade, the Pilgrim’s mind and bearing remains highly-strung, neurotic and anxious. He has nothing to fear from the Beast, but has long realised just how horrific his fate is. The darker parts of his psyche dwell on it daily.

So, the Beast contrived to make things a little more interesting. It is no coincidence that Wirt seemed to consistently run into people from the past, when he decides to stray towards other patches in the woods where new Edelwood might have grown since he last travelled there.

The Beast sent Wirt down a path leading towards a part of the woods he had never been down before. Wirt implored the ancient deity, asking quite where they were going, but got no response. Frustrated, the boy became sullen. The Beast cared not about the maelstrom of emotions in this broken, but technically still functional tool of his. Just that it continued to chop the Edelwood efficiently, to refine the oil and light the flame within the Lantern.

“Pilgrim,” the Beast commanded one dark evening as the path evens out before them. There’s a thick cluster of Edelwood trees here, and the Lantern’s light has been running low. In the valley that gently slopes below, is a large farm cottage for a family where the number of siblings can be counted on both hands.

Snaking out from the cottage’s front porch is a path, carefully dug out over years. Wirt followed it, slipping along the shadows that night and discovering that it not only leads to the schoolhouse, but the market as well. 

During the day, when the Beast is much less active, Wirt carries out his duties and watched out for the inhabitants of the cottage.

The evening prior, the lamps were lit and there was loud after-dinner chatter coming from the back porch. It was inaudible from so far away, of course, but Wirt watched the social interaction from afar, well aware of the soft screeches of souls imprinting themselves on the Beast’s body somewhere behind him.

He quickly got back to work.

Wirt had developed the strength of a true woodsman, after years of swinging axes and billhooks. He had barely been able to split a log in half in his early days of servitude to the Beast.

The Edelwood trees in this area secreted an unsatisfactory, weak oil that suggested that a lost soul becoming trapped in these woods was an incredibly rare occurrence. Maybe the folks here were smart enough to outwit the Beast -- but nobody could outrun the creature for long. Sooner or later, they would trip up, and the Beast would swiftly ensure that their souls were claimed for the Lantern.

He stuffed the twigs and branches into his pack, which he rested upon his shoulder.

With the morning’s work done, he looked down upon the valley, and the path cutting through it.

One by one, a small crowd of children emerge from the front door, and leading up the rear...

The sight of the girl makes his heart twist. It made no sense — Wirt had never seen Beatrice in her human form, at all, but he could somehow, intrinsically tell that it was her, keeping an eye out on the family she had once callously abandoned in order to discover how to change them all back from bluebirds.

He knew he had to get a closer look — and so, over the days, he emerged closer and closer to the girl.

* * *

  
These fleeting, shadowy appearance only served to pique Beatrice’s curiosity. She shortly went from merely asking about the Beast and his Pilgrim, to whirling around the _moment_ she catches sight of the creature out of their corner of her eye on their walks back from the schoolhouse, when the light is growing dimmer day by day and the darkness draws around her siblings. 

She remains vigilant, however. The children know better than to waddle up the surrounding slopes that lead into the woods. Despite this, Beatrice maintained a headcount every few minutes, just in case. But, preoccupied with the idea of the boy she once knew potentially sacrificing himself to the Beast and now operating as the Pilgrim, she gets sloppy. Sometimes she counts only eight or nine, then panics, and notices the ninth or tenth sibling waving and insisting Beatrice has forgotten all about them. Her mother would never forgive her if she let any of the children out of her sight, and so, Beatrice never lets the children walk much further ahead of her, or slip further behind if there are any stragglers after a long school day.

Wirt could feel the Beast’s mirth at this misfortune of his. His ardent love for a girl who may not love him back, just as he experienced before crossing the river. The way he would linger further, staring longer at Beatrice and quickly hiding or absconding before she can see him.

One evening, while Wirt is tending to an Edelwood suffering from stunted growth just a short distance from Beatrice’s homestead, the Beast sings. An old tune, forgotten to the sands of time, but piercingly familiar to Wirt — he had been by the Beast’s side for long enough now to know the creature’s musical repertoire.

The chatter from the back porch immediately ceases, and the eldest girl stands stock still, like a doe trying to determine the location of a predator.

Her parents, afflicted by the superstition of all who dwell in the Unknown, realise that this discordant, operatic bass is a sign of one thing and one thing only -- the Beast being upon them. Immediately, the elder family members head back inside the house, making the lamps inside glow brighter, soothing the younger children.

Beatrice remained outside, however. She wrapped her shawl just that little bit tighter around herself, and determinedly strode up the valley towards the source of the Beast’s song.

This is stupid, she knows that -- surely this is how the Beast gets his victims? But, the legend of the Beast and the Pilgrim has become far too tantalising by now. And she has to see Wirt for herself.

If he even is Wirt any more.

_If._


End file.
